Water issues affecting Pinetown business, La Lucia residents

Water issues affecting Pinetown business, La Lucia residents

There was some exasperation in Durban on Wednesday afternoon as a Pinetown business and a La Lucia resident are trying to get water leaks fixed.

Water issues in Pinetown, La Lucia
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Water has been flowing outside the Westmead offices of Coopers Environmental Science for five weeks.


The company says it alerted eThekwini Municipality at the beginning of February.


Manager Heidi Young says the leak is right outside their office driveway.


She says not only is it wasting an incredible amount of water - it's also led to potholes forming on the road.


"There's water bubbling out of it and running into the road; the cars you can hear them as they drive through the water all the time. I have reported it on the WhatsApp number that eThekwini Water gives you.


"I have now, over time from 15 February, have three reference numbers because every time I query progress on it, they just give me another reference number and we have had eThekwini Municipality vans parked outside our property - we have gone and spoken to them and said to them 'Please can they speak to somebody."


The eThekwini Water Department has told Newswatch a plumber was sent to do the repairs.


It says a team will be dispatched again to fix the fault.


In La Lucia, an elderly resident says efforts to get several leaks on her street fixed have amounted to nothing.


Rose van der Vyver says water is gushing out of four separate leaks on Forest Drive.


She says one of them is right outside her house.


Van der Vyver says they are losing hundreds of litres of water a day.


She says the municipality has sent teams out, but the problem isn't solved.


"They have done them at night with hardly any light. Then they send somebody, and they take all the stuff and they take our the tar and they pack it on the side.


"We have potholes outside the gate because the last time they fixed it they don't put anything over it but sand and when it rains or when there is more water it sinks. It's never-ending if they could just come and fix it and fix it properly."

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